Glen Tyler of 350:– The first Divest Fest in South Africa wasted little time in getting down to climate solutions. A group of 18 people came together in Cape Town to learn and take action for fossil fuel divestment. The organiser, David Le Page from Fossil Free South Africa (FFSA) set the scene and underlined the urgent need for action by giving an overview of the threat of climate change – unfortunately a relatively easy job in a city that is experiencing a crippling drought.

I then outlined some examples of global divestment campaigns and the strategies and tactics used in those, and the successes that came from those campaigns – did you know that New York recently divested $390 billion worth of its employees’ pension funds? We then got busy with the good stuff – talking about how we can move the divestment conversation in South Africa forward.

It was fantastic to hear about the steps that the people there had already taken – from asking their finance managers about divestment, to buying into investment houses in order to ask them to divest. There are very few real options for people in South Africa who are looking to divest from fossil fuels, two such options are a basket of shares on the Easy Equities platform, and a fund put together with WWF, although this is still not a fully divested fund. One step Fossil Free South Africa is taking to change this is their petition, asking asset managers to offer a divested fund. If you haven’t signed it already, please do!

At the event, the participants wrote a joint letter to Sygnia asset managers, explaining divestment and asking them to offer a divested fund. There is a sense that once one such fund is offered, other asset managers will follow. It was fantastic to see real action happening, with participants writing to asset managers and institutions in their own capacity on the day.

We heard more from FFSA management committee member Mellony Sparks about the divestment landscape in South Africa. Her presentation led to a number of interesting conversations around the mechanics of investing and divestment, green jobs and the social repercussions of divestment, as well as other environmental issues that we could take into account when talking about divestment.

FFSA outdid themselves by providing vegan pizzas and raw chocolate fudge for lunch. It was a fantastic event, and already there are plans for future ‘fests! We hope you’ll join us at one!

Feel like you missed out? FFSA has a range of easy actions you can take on their website – check them out. Our thanks to Glen for this summary of our event, and we include some of the feedback from participants below:

“Very stimulating questions and conversation! Really enjoyed it”

“I really appreciated the space: Connecting like minded people A quieter space would’ve been more pleasant or maybe just microphones. The seating arrangement could have been made more interactive”

“I think the content is so informative, necessary and interesting but perhaps adding elements of entertainment and having it later in the day could coax more people into joining.”

“A good session. Less jargon”

“You encouraged me to take action and get moving to lobby”

“I found the introduction to the cause and what you guys are going awesome. The practical approach to further our own campaign was also very cool.”

“It was a well informed group of people, so possible to take the conversation to another and needed level of detail that will inform advocacy action. Really important and thanks to organisers and contributors. Might be good to develop a basic alternative investor’s guide for divestors because most people just leave this sort of decision making to their advisors.”

Welcome to 2018, and the slightly mad state of play in South Africa right now: Day Zero is rapidly approaching in Cape Town, while cities and institutions of the stature of New York and Lloyds of London (the world’s oldest insurance market) are divesting from fossil fuels – but South Africans still aren’t widely questioning why we allow companies like Sasol to continue pumping out enormous amounts of climate-breaking greenhouse gases without committing to science-based targets for reductions as genuinely responsible companies are doing.

So please save this date: On 24 February, Fossil Free SA, with 350 Africa, will be hosting our first Divest Fest, from 9.30am to 1.30pm, at 75 Harrington Street, Cape Town.

Divest Fest will be a morning of practical online climate and divestment action, with videos, mini-talks, brainstorming, and ample time to take practical action to push ahead fossil fuel divestment in South Africa (followed by lunch, possibly even with water!) More details to follow…

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1: Sign our Petition

Firstly, if you haven’t yet signed up to our Fossil Free SA petition calling for SA’s top asset managers to create fossil fuel free funds, please do so NOW.

Then, there are some key activities coming up in the next weeks for those who want to have their say in South Africa’s energy future, led by various coalitions, including the Campaign for a Just Energy Future, working to ensure that all South Africans have clean, safe, accessible and affordable energy.

2: Join public meetings and protests on Tuesday 21 November…

07h00–08h30: Protest against nuclear on the Roodebloem Road, Woodstock bridge into City.

09h30–12h00: Join the public observers when the Parliamentary energy oversight committee quizzes our latest energy minister on his dodgy plans. (Bring your ID to get into Parliament.)

4. CPLO and Project 90 by 2030 discuss the Just Energy Transition

If you’re in Johannesburg on 28 November, you could join the Project 90 by 2030 Just Energy Transition Roundtable discussion on the topic of “Renewable Energy Jobs – The Reality and the Potential”. Please see this doc (pdf) for more details.

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Our team is about to hit Rocking the Daisies, and this is what we’ll be asking festival-goers to do for the divestment cause – here we list five quick ways you can take action right now to push South Africa towards a more safe and prosperous future and away from the deadly fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – that threaten our climate, our health and our savings.

We’re delighted to announce that another two South African institutions have committed to fossil fuel divestment.

Two Catholic organisations, the Archdiocese of Cape Town and Catholic Welfare and Development (CWD), have made these commitments as part of a larger coalition of 40 faith institutions on five continents.

As our partners 350.org note:

This is a big moment for both the global divestment movement and faith community, and we need to keep this momentum going strong. This commitment well and truly quadruples the one announced in May, when nine Catholic organizations divested. We need to celebrate it and also seize the opportunity to build upon this moment.

In the words of Domenico Sorrentino, the bishop of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino:

“St. Francis (Pope Francis) encouraged us to live humbly, simply, and with true reverence for the Creator and Creation. Divesting from fossil fuels and making new investments in clean energy sources is our way of following St. Francis’s example.”

Pope Francis has prominently voiced his concerns about climate change and the fossil fuel industry. But while Vatican officials have acknowledged the call for fossil fuel divestment, the Vatican has not committed to divest its money from the industry that is destroying Creation — yet.

In the wake of this announcement, people from all over the world are uniting during the Season of Creation and urging the World Bank to stop financing fossil fuels and support for renewable energy instead. Please join and add your voice to the global call.

Now more than ever we need institutions to stand together on the right side of history against an immoral industry whose climate impacts we see and experience daily.

Another exciting dimension to this announcement is that no less than four African Catholic bodies are making divestment commitments: besides the South Africans, the St Patrick’s Missionary Society in Kenya and Sierra Leone Young Christian Student movement are, so far as we know, the first African institutions outside of South Africa to divest.

After we’d reiterated the basics of our divestment campaign, Christine Reddell, from the Centre for Environmental Rights, spoke about South Africa’s first big climate change court case – which saw our Minister for the Environment ordered to consider the climate impacts of the proposed Thabametsi coal power station in deciding whether or not to authorise its construction. The judgment confirmed that the information in the initial environmental impact assessment was inadequate for fully assessing the likely climate impacts of Thabametsi. The Minister is now obliged to consider a full climate change impact assessment, and public comment, before proceeding to authorise – or not.

CER believes the judgment will make it increasingly difficult to authorise coal power in South Africa, given their unavoidable impacts, our high levels of vulnerability to climate change, and the availability of cheaper, lower-impact alternatives (wind & solar).

The Thabametsi case is important to our divestment campaign because most of our big SA banks – Nedbank (the ‘Green bank’), Standard Bank, ABSA, and Rand Merchant Bank – are funding Thabametsi with our savings and investment, despite most having proclaimed their concern over climate change. It’s also funded by the Development Bank of South Africa, supposedly committed to sustainable development, and the Unemployment Insurance Fund – which means that if Thabametsi is approved but later becomes a stranded asset, jobless South Africans stand to lose out.

We also screened the 350.org documentary Disobedience, which tells the stories of communities standing up against fossil fuels around the world – in the Philippines, the US and Germany in particular.

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Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille at a 2011 protest against the proposed ‘Secrecy Bill’. Pic: David Le Page.

The City of Cape Town has committed to divesting from fossil fuels! Tucked away in a recent statement about the City’s green bonds, Mayor Patricia de Lille added:

I am taking this a step further and I have informed our Finance Directorate that we are going to divest from fossil fuel assets and companies in favour of greener and cleaner investments which are in line with our vision of a sustainable future. We are going to instruct investors looking after our money not to put our money into fossil fuel-related companies or for it to be used to fund the development of dirty and unsustainable projects. We want our investments to be aligned with our principles of resilience and sustainability.

Fossil Free SA, together with 350 Africa, has been campaigning for the city to divest since late 2016.

Also, following up on our May workshop, we’ve published an oped in Business Day on divestment: ‘Signs are the climate is right for divesting from the fossil fuel industry’.

Come to Fossil Free SA’s next community event on 26 July, 5.30 for 6pm, at 75 Harrington Street, Cape Town, to find out more about how you can join the global movement to divest from fossil fuels.

We are a network of South Africans calling for divestment from fossil fuels – and restorative reinvestment in sustainable energy – to stigmatise fossil fuel use, accelerate sustainable system change, help slow climate change, reduce the financial risks of fossil fuel investments, and so help secure our human rights and common future.